Vivation And The Martial Arts

By Jim Leonard

I have taught the inner art of Vivation to tens of thousands of people around the world. Many of these people have been students and instructors in the martial arts. Vivation fills a need that nothing else does in the life of martial arts practitioners. Vivation integrates both emotions and physical pain. In general martial arts give greatly oversimplified instruction about emotion, like “be fearless,” but that is worse than useless. All emotions, if resisted, interfere in human performance, especially including combat and spiritual martial arts.

Students of the martial arts have a special experience of the flow of life-force energy in the body. Vivation uses that same energy, specially harnessed by a breathing technique called Circular Breathing, to integrate emotions and pain quickly and permanently. In the body, emotions are “patterns of energy,” analogous to the visible “patterns” we see on the surface of a rushing stream of water. In Vivation, the integration of emotions and other things we feel in the body comprises “receiving the energy from the pattern of energy”. Vivation integrates all the different feelings that come up during the day, but also all of the suppressed emotions that run the show from the subconscious level.

Because both fear and anger and reduce performance in the martial arts, an inner art for resolving them is required. This is a specialized area of instruction. The only appropriate response to the emotions is integration. Suppression of an emotion basically means pretending that it is not there. Hoping to have no emotions is foolish and ineffective. Instead the inner art of integrating the emotions must be learned and practiced. Vivation has serious applications in the martial arts which will improve the performance of absolutely everyone. Instruction in this art from someone who is not specialized in it has no hope of matching instruction from a real Vivation Professional.

The energy within an emotion can be used to increase effectiveness. While the energy is resisted, it will seem to be separate from the overall flow of energy. The emotion will seem like something bad and undesirable that is happening to the person. When people are trying not to feel an emotion, they perceive themselves practically to be victims of the feeling and of whomever or whatever is stimulating it. In that case, the energy cannot be used, but instead will actually oppose appropriate action. This same energy, whether it is in the form of anger, fear, or even sadness, can be recovered and utilized to improve performance immediately.

Integration of emotions through the practice of Vivation is not only useful in an immediate situation of using or preparing to use the martial-arts techniques that one has learned. Vivation also greatly improves the deep and overall emotional makeup of the practitioner by permanently integrating the long-lived emotions in the subconscious. For example, the practitioner might harbor some subconscious resentment toward the authority of her/his father, which can reduce the acceptance of instruction from the martial arts master. If this emotion is not integrated, it will cause problems throughout the life of the practitioner. The emotion will resist all discipline and attempts to control it or get rid of it. There is no way to deal with this kind of subconscious emotion effectively without feeling it and recapturing the energy that has been tied up in it. This is the kind of thing that Vivation is best at. More than 100,000 people worldwide have learned to do Vivation for themselves. The majority of these people have learned Vivation for the purpose of integrating deep-seated and treacherous emotions that have never responded to any other methods.

Every student of the martial arts had a childhood full of many emotional experiences. With proper instruction in Vivation, every one of these childhood experiences can be used advantageously to contribute to success later in life. Without integrating these emotions, some part of the practitioner remains a child, forever influenced exactly as though the experience were happening now. Martial arts practitioners are always seeking to exceed previous limits to performance. Often they experience favoring a certain limb because of some painful experience from an earlier part of life, even though the physical injury may have been healed for years. Vivation is the best way to heal the emotions than remain from early experiences like that.

Physical pain, itself, responds immediately to Vivation. The pain itself is a pattern of energy. The pain is composed of energy. Resistance to the feeling reduces healing. Instruction in Vivation includes the best techniques for focusing instantly on the details of what is felt and the integration of the pain within seconds, so that the energy it contains can be recovered and used immediately. Vivation is highly effective on both acute and chronic pain. Permanently integrating physical pain is actually quite similar to permanently integrating emotional pain. Everyone experiences pain from time to time, but martial arts practitioners need to integrate pain immediately while taking effective action against the opponent who inflicted the pain. An effective response often depends on dealing instantaneously with the pain caused by the opponent’s actions. Vivation makes this comfortable, easy, and fast.

Performance anxiety is also an enemy of performance itself. I have taught Vivation to thousands of actors, performers, speakers, and martial arts practitioners specifically to overcome performance anxiety. Performance anxiety exists, at the level of the body, to improve performance. The perceived “anxiety” really is an added burst of energy, from adrenaline and other bodily resources for the exact purpose of giving a better and more conscious performance. It is not something bad at all, but in reality something extremely good. If this feeling of added energy is resisted, then the resistance both prevents the energy from doing any good, but also diverts attention away from the focus necessary to speak or act well or take appropriate physical action. The skill of Vivation ensures that this energy will be received as the prize it is–our body’s natural way of preparing us to do our very best. All anxiety is caused by the restimulation of suppressed fear and other emotions. Vivation permanently integrates the underlying emotions and makes it possible to receive the benefits without any hint of harm or discomfort.

Vivation also integrates fatigue. Many years ago, within a few months of when I first created Vivation, I once went intentionally without any sleep at all for five days and five nights, just Viving to integrate the fatigue. This worked extremely well. I was doing about four hours per day of concentrated Vivation. Vivation methodology is very superior now to what it was then, so it works much better now for every purpose including that one. I would never recommend that anybody completely substitute Vivation for nightly rest, but it often comes in handy to know how to use Vivation to integrate fatigue. Sometimes martial arts training can be grueling, and fatigue can begin to take its toll. Being able to use Vivation to integrate the fatigue can greatly extend the period of time in which one can continue to perform at a high level. Vivation increases endurance by improving the efficiency of how the body uses energy and by reducing discomfort with fatigue.

Vivation resolves the emotions that can lead a student to want to quit studying the martial arts. This is something that is very important for accomplishing much in life either in the martial arts or in any other sphere of endeavor. One must be able to not decline in focus or enthusiasm. What causes burnout is the suppression of emotions. By practicing Vivation regularly, all of these emotions get integrated and cease building up into a problem. Vivation can make a person a far better student, especially when instruction continues over a period of years. Vivation helps make it through the rough spots and tough times. The emotional resistance to sustained effort is integrated with Vivation, so that enthusiasm is conserved, even in the face of frustration and other emotional difficulties.

Finally, Vivation also makes it possible to live in peace with oneself and with others. Violence occurs when emotions run amok. A person who knows Vivation will almost always find a better way to handle a difficult person or situation than by resorting to violence. Integrated emotions equal a clear mind. A clear mind is an effective mind. Vivation makes it much easier to find win-win solutions. If the other person becomes violent, then the inner skill of Vivation exists to create the emotional fortitude that is essential to appropriate uses of the martial arts. In an emergency, emotional integration saves lives.

When martial arts instructors learn Vivation for their own use, they often want their students to learn it as well. Vivation is learned best privately, because of the fact that each person has developed unique ways of suppressing her/his emotions. In private lessons known as The Seven Basic Lessons, a high degree of mastery over Vivation can be attained in just three days of intensive work with a Vivation Professional. Three days to gain the emotional mastery that might make the difference between success and failure in the martial arts.

Jim Leonard was the originator of the Vivation process. During his life he conducted more than 45,000 Vivation sessions in 22 countries.